I have today finished my Macroeconomics and Technology/Innovation strategy work– except for the TIS exam. I think we did a pretty good job with the analysis of Social Lending (Zopa, Prosper) as an emerging market. It’s a fascinating world which, like any innovation, could be world-changing and could fade away. According to the academic thinking, however, it’s pretty well-positioned to act as a disruptive technology. Time will tell, and I’ll be interested to see how it plays out (of course, it’s not just the technology, but the markets and organisations in which they play that make innovation either take root or… not).

Slightly embarrassingly, Samantha Power (who spoke last week at the OU) went off and called Hillary Clinton a “monster” to the Scotsman newspaper. I guess she doesn’y handle jet lag well. I’m getting pretty annoyed at the Democrats– from both camps. It’s their race to lose, but if anyone can f*(! if up it would be the Democrats. And they’re doing a good job of it.

But this blog’s meant to be about my MBA, so…

After the last day of classes last week there was a whole lotta drinkin’ when the school gave us free booze. Which turned into food later, which turned into drinks after that, which turned into my heading with several folks back to Pushpak’s house and we had a late-night wine-fueled debate on the merits (!) and drawbacks on arranged marriage. And it was… interesting. Different. Civilised as well. And pretty much opened my eyes– I’d heard people defending arranged marriage on NPR and Pacifica radio and whatnot, but it’s different when you’re talking to people you know, you trust, who you’re seeing their marriage work.

Yet another benefit of going off and doing this kind of thing. Even in Britain. 49 countries.

In other life-changing news, writing my Macro final paper (“exploring the ambiguities around macroeconomics”), I had to figure out what I thought about the economy, the role of central banks, Alan Greenspan, the business cycle, the weakening dollar, the price of oil, and the costs of pollution. Just to start. And it really made me think. I’ve got to go back in a bit and re-look at the data, and I’m hoping to swap papers with quite a few folks afterwards to see how they approached the question (“Central banks have ‘lost their grip’: Discuss”).

And we did our EP presentation: The Pub-Crawl Poster Company, Inc, is born and was encouraged by the (pretend) investors! Which means that we have viable side business– and excuse to travel and go to bars– for as long as we want to make money.

My team and our presentation: Jakob, Gavin, Johannes, Minori, me

The (non-grade) presentatipon went really well and the panel were very encouraging. So once we expand the 10 powerpoint slides into 25 pages of concise, witty, intelligent, pontificating MBA-speak, hopefully that will carry us over into distinction territory. The only ding was that it was pretty small potatoes for people with our level and value of education, but it was pitched as a side business after all…

So that’s the news. Onwards and upwards! Wish me luck on getting a sexy Consulting Project, as I’m working all angles…